Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - Tuesday, December 1, 1998
Sonya Ross, Associated Press Writer
The president planned to announce $10 million in grants for the care of AIDS orphans, and highlight a 30 percent increase in funding to the National Institutes of Health for research on HIV prevention and treatment around the world.
Clinton was making the announcements today in a White House ceremony commemorating World AIDS Day. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Brian Atwood, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, were scheduled to join him.
The efforts Clinton was announcing are expected to have their largest impact in Africa, where the United Nations AIDS program estimates that nearly 8 million children have been orphaned by AIDS and at least 1 million children are infected with the virus.
The president also was announcing that he is sending his AIDS policy advisor, Sandy Thurman, to southern Africa on a fact-finding mission about AIDS orphans and give him a report on how the United States can respond to the problem.
The U.S. Agency for International Development projects that as many as 40 million children will be orphaned by AIDS by 2010, with 90 percent of them in developing countries that lack the resources to care for them. In the United States alone, USAID said, about 80,000 children have lost a parent to AIDS.
The grants, administered by USAID, will be used to provide training for foster families, schooling for orphans, vocational training and other assistance. Also, USAID will work on improving medical care given children infected with HIV, and preventing the transfer of the virus from mother to child.
The White House said the NIH funding, included in the fiscal 1999 budget, represents the largest single investment of public monies into AIDS research. It includes $200 million for AIDS vaccine research, an increase of $47 million over the previous year, and $164 million for new research such as prevention trials and prevention/treatment of ``opportunistic infections'' like tuberculosis that kill people with HIV and AIDS.
As for AIDS in the United States, Vice President Al Gore was to announce $200 million for housing assistance for AIDS patients and their families. And Clinton was highlighting an earlier announcement of $156 million toward fighting AIDS among U.S. minorities.
Besides those efforts, Congress has approved funding increases for a range of HIV/AIDS programs, including an extra $262 million for the Ryan White CARE Act, an additional $32 million for HIV prevention programs through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an extra $21 million for Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS.
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